Food and Country

Saw this at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

"Food and Country" is a documentary about America's policy of producing cheap food at all costs has long hobbled small independent farmers, ranchers, and chefs. Worried for their survival, trailblazing food writer Ruth Reichl reaches out across political and social divides to uncover the country's broken food system and the innovators risking it all to transform it. The documentary was decent as it's a typical standard structure about the farmers and the struggles they are going through. Director Laura Gabbert offers some interesting insights about how the pandemic has hit hard for independent farmers but that's pretty much it.

The camerawork and production is pretty good. There were interesting concepts explored but I kind of wish the film explored more around certain time eras as a lot more has changed than what the film presents.

Overall, it was one time watch and I did learn some food facts.

Rating: B-

Food and Country was well-received at the SXSW Film Festival. It is an extremely well-research documentary that explores the nature of food production and distribution within US capitalist system. The film uses cases studies of smaller independent farmers, ranchers, fisherman and restauranteurs to explore the complexities of our food system. It shows how our system was structured historically to gradually consolidate food production into a oligopoly of large producers who are able to mass produce inexpensive food.

This system has all sorts of implications. It reduces the quality and healthiness of the food supply. It undermines the business model of small farmers - and particularly small-scale African-American farmers. It negatively impacts the environment. It undermines small restaurants trying to produce healthier fare at reasonable prices. It also undermines the wage scale for workers in both agriculture and restaurants.

Through a series of case studies against Food and Country intricately lays out all of these impacts on human life and health against the background of the pandemic in 2020-2021 which exacerbated all of these long-standing issues. It focus on the smaller scale solutions such as organic farming and farm-to-table production that cuts out the middle-scale wholesalers. It sets up, but doesn't fully examine ways in which the reform of the food system can produce greater economic and social justice in the broader society.

This film does an excellent job of exploring the nuances of a very complicated and underexamined system. It is recommended for those who want to gain a more systematic understanding of how we are all shaped by what eat.